People are wild about Retina display but, in actuality, it doesn't make a big difference.
Everyone seems abuzz about the possibility of a new MacBook Pro, likely to be announced next week at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Many fret that the world as we know it may end it if the new MacBooks don't have a Retina display. Cripes.
Time magazine ran the headline, "What If Apple's New MacBook Pros Don't Have Retina Displays?"—implying that it would be a disaster and could be a gigantic letdown. Puh-leeze.
The reason for the super-high resolution screen is so you can get some detail on a 3.5-inch cell phone screen or on a smaller display in a cameras viewfinder. Ever since the introduction of the so-called Retina display, all we hear about is Retina this and Retina that.
I put my AMOLED Android screen next to Apple's Retina display all the time and my display looks better. Nobody denies it. So what's the fuss and why does everyone now want this Retina display on a larger format?
I sure don't. For one thing, it would be a disaster for performance. Those extra pixels have to be addressed, you know, and since you do not want text that appears to be one pica high, a lot of effort would go into the scaling of everything. In a side-by-side comparison at a three-foot distance, it is doubtful that the Retina display on a 15-inch screen would look much different than 1920x1080.
Panasonic once asserted that at any normal viewing distance from a flat panel TV, nobody could tell the difference between 720p and 1080p unless the display was bigger than 50-inches. I'm certain, though, that all the iPhone mavens would want a Retina display TV because I hear a loud buzz demanding 4K TVs. These are sets that would typically be anywhere from 4096x1714 to 3996x2160 to 4096x3112. Really? You want that? "Yeah, man!"
I suppose if you are right on top of the set, you'd notice. Of course, no broadcaster is going to invest in such gear for decades; they all hated upgrading to HD. And who's got the bandwidth for mass distribution of this sort of signal? I suppose this is all beside the point.
I expect a big Nikon or Canon SLR will eventually be geared to shoot a 24-megapixel (say 8000x3000) movie at 60 frames per second and we can all "ooooh" and "ahhh" at the beautiful movie when someone shows it on a Retina display laptop at the office.
You know, if you want genuine super-high resolution, you can go outside and look at a nature, right? I wonder if anyone realizes that anymore. Does anyone go outdoors and see a tree and remark, "Wow, look at the resolution of that bark! How many pixels do you think this is?"
I think the invention of the Retina display has made the discussion ridiculous.
You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.
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